Tinnitus Therapy

It is through years of experience and training that we are able to properly council people based on techniques common with the Tinnitus Retraining Therapy model as well as mindfulness based tinnitus reduction. A combination of these protocols has helped the Audiologists at Broadmead and Oak Bay Hearing to be successful in managing tinnitus.

For years, Tinnitus Retraining Therapy has been the gold standard in treating tinnitus. This is a non-invasive, non-medical treatment that does not involve any surgery or medication and has no side effects. It is based on retraining the subconscious parts of your brain to ignore the sounds of the tinnitus.

In the past year, Jon Kabat Zinn's mindfulness based stress reduction program is becoming a very popular technique in terms of managing tinnitus. The research has shown that people with tinnitus who employ these techniques have more improvement in the perception of their tinnitus than those who do not.

In our clinics, we use techniques from both of these methods to customize a program that suits the needs of each individual tinnitus patient. We are all unique, which is why we construct a unique program designed to improve your specific challenges.

What to Expect

At the first visit, you will meet with the Audiologist to discuss your case history and how your tinnitus is effecting your daily life. You will then be taken into the sound booth for a diagnostic hearing assessment. The purpose of this test is to make certain that there is not a physical reason for the tinnitus (ie. a broken bone in the middle ear). Should there be a medical red flag condition, immediate medical referral is made.

The Audiologist will get an idea about the nature of the tinnitus and whether it is related to underlying hearing loss or other conditions such as high thyroid, stress, anxiety or muscle tension. When the testing is complete, your results will be shared with you and a treatment plan will be discussed.

About Tinnitus

What causes tinnitus?

Tinnitus is one of those conditions that can have a multitude of causes. Some of them can be:

disorders of the cervical vertebrae (neck)

an under active thyroid

cardiovascular disease

allergies

exposure to excessively loud sounds

high blood pressure

overproduction of ear wax

ear infections

acoustic tumors

a tumor on the auditory nerve

degeneration of the bones in the middle ear

age-related changes in the inner ear

use of a prescription drug or other medications (such as high doses of Aspirin)

systemic disease

head trauma

Can tinnitus be treated?

YES. That is an important thing to remember. Many people feel hopeless after being told they have to live with it or 'get used to it'. At Broadmead Hearing Clinic we use techniques common with tinnitus retraining therapy as well as Mindfulness based tinnitus reduction to assist in managing tinnitus. One of the cornerstones of treatment is to use sound therapy in the form of an ear level sound generator.

Remember, the mantra for tinnitus is to "avoid silence". For it is when it is quiet that people become more aware of their tinnitus. The sound therapy helps to bring up the level of the background noise that is very easy on the ear. That is to say that we use a sound that the ear can quite easily habituate. Think of the example of the person who buys a house beside the train track. The first night they awake in the night second guessing themselves because the sound of the train was so loud they thought it was going to come through the house. The brain has an incredible capacity to habituate auditory signals like in the example above. I bet you could imagine those home owners saying "we don't even hear it anymore". They do hear it. At the same level. The difference is that the BRAIN doesn't attach the same importance anymore. It is based on habituation that sound therapy works.

At Broadmead Hearing Clinic we use sound therapy and a wide variety of counseling strategies to help people gain control over their tinnitus again.